Support for Cameron in decline. Support for Corbyn on the rise.

Our article makes one error where it suggests 50% of people overall would prefer to see Corbyn stay on as leader. This is incorrect. The figure we came to was based on what figures the Daily Mail had reported on and they had not made clear that the 19% of people who strongly agreed that Corbyn should stay on was in fact part of the 31% who agreed he should stay on.

In response, we apologise for any misrepresentstion. That is more of an apology than you will get from the likes of the Mail or Express.

It leads us to two points to raise. Firstly that 21% of people are undecided and secondly that all the other points we raise are accurate and are backed up by the graphs within this article.

The original article in its original state continues below.

Yet again today two newspapers lead with headlines in the negative about Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party.

A telephone based Ipos MORI poll of around 1,000 people conducted for the Evening standard led the Standard to lead with the following headline;

“Dump Jeremy Corbyn before election, say 42% of voters”

– Evening Standard 26/10/15

Whilst based on the same poll the Daily Mail ran with the headline;

“Fresh blow for Corbyn as poll reveals more than 40% of voters want him gone BEFORE the next election”

– Daily Mail 26/10/15

This is not new territory for us. We highlighted a similar poll conducted around a month or so ago where similar headlines were featured only for us to show that whilst some aspects of the poll were not great there were other aspects of the poll that were favourable to the Labour Party. In fact the entire poll was better for Labour than for the Conservatives.

We are going to do the exact same thing here today.

The photo below shows how the Daily Mail began their article.

How the daily mail began their article

It looks very bad and to the average reader wether they know much about Corbyn or not will now subconsciously believe that Corbyn is unpopular amongst Labour voters, however the poll result details make no reference to who the respondents supported in the first place. Are they Conservative supporters saying he should go?

However, a deeper look through the poll results, as are buried within both the Daily Mail and the Evening Standard articles themselves anyway, shows that things are not as bad as they seem and in fact in some cases are more detrimental to the Conservatives.

Here is our own headline as if we were reporting the results ourselves;

“Tories more unpopular with the electorate than Labour”

– RevSoc

Here is our findings. The Daily Mail touched on just two areas of the poll as highlighted below.

Four out of 10 voters think Labour should replace Jeremy Corbyn as leader before the next election, a new poll has revealed.

The IpsosMori poll found a third of voters feel ‘strongly’ that the 66-year-old leftwinger should be axed. Around the same the number say Mr Corbyn should be allowed to stay on to fight the 2020 election – with just two in 10 voters who claimed they felt ‘strongly’ about this.

The above two points refer to the same thing and the Standard goes deeper into those stats saying that 31% felt he should stay on, 19% felt strongly that he should stay on and with 42% saying that he should go it leaves 8% undecided. So you could easily say that 50% of voters think Corbyn should stay on with 8% undecided and when you factor in that you don’t know who is answering the poll, why would the Daily Mail lead with their headline unless there was an ulterior motive?

Older voters are particularly dissatisfied with Mr Corbyn. While 57 per cent of 18-34s think he is doing well, only 22 per cent of over-55s say the same.

Here it could easily be argued that the people who are going to be around the longest, the people that are the future of the country, the people that are fresh into politics, the people who are more aware of the type of politics needed in a modern age are the ones backing Corbyn in this age of ‘new politics’. Of course we don’t necessarily believe that but it could be argued that way.

This was all that The Daily Mail reported on and finished that section of their article with the following words. “Mr Corbyn’s dire poll ratings will spark fresh concern among Labour MPs over the party’s chances of winning back power in 2020″

When you analyse the data though, it doesn’t appear to be as ‘dire’ as the Daily Mail makes out.

The Express continued their article with one more question that is quite important. ‘Satisfaction of the party leaders’ and in an almost exact repeat of the last poll that we reported on, more people are dissatisfied with David Cameron than they are with Jeremy Corbyn.

51% are dissatisfied with David Cameron compared to just 39% with Jeremy Corbyn.

On one final note we have provided a little visual representation below as sourced from the Ipos MORI website.

The first photo below is hugely important because the figures both of the articles in the Mail and Express give are the figures on the right, ‘headline voting intention’, this is MORI’s own way of deciding how a vote would have panned out during a general election. For the ‘actual’ answers as to who people would vote for as given by respondents in the poll you need to view the left hand image. 35% Tory. 35% Labour.

voting intentions amongst respondents

Here is the same photo again but with the small print at the bottom in regards to MORI’s methods of working out the voter intentions.

voter intention is based on a ‘method’satisfaction ratings of party leaders

This final photo below is also important. Cameron’s satisfaction rating could be viewed as plateaued or on the decline and Corbyn is on the rise.

satisfaction rating over time for party leaders

We anticipate that like the last time we exposed a poll for being in fact favourable to Jeremy Corbyn we will get some cries of “How do you figure out that the Conservatives are doing badly compared to Labour when some of the results indicate that the Tories are doing better?” Well we have three responses;

Yes some parts of the poll suggest the Tories are doing better, but only when written a certain way. If you look at them from a different perspective the results are not as bad for the Labour Party as the newspapers above seem to indicate. Highlighting their bias.

When you factor in the early stage of the Corbyn led Labour Party and the fact there is four and a half years until the next GE. Plus the grassroots movement and the inspiration that Corbyn is whipping up, the results, again, look very promising. Especially when you consider the hard time Corbyn has received from the Press. In fact, it makes it even more impressive.

Some parts of the poll are, front and centre better for Labour than the Tories. It’s a simple fact that the right wing press refuse to report.

10 thoughts on “Support for Cameron in decline. Support for Corbyn on the rise.”

I’m sorry to say this, but this is an extremely qualified and biased reading of the poll, and in some cases is actually just plain wrong.

For example, you say 50% of voters think Corbyn should stay on – that’s just not the case if you look at the poll. 31% of voters think he should stay on. Within that group, 19% said they strongly feel that. So you can’t add them together, 19% is part of the original 31%. It’s lazy and inaccurate analysis like that that really undermines our leftist cause.

More people think Corbyn should go than think the same of any other leader. So although we may not like that, that’s not biased or unfair reporting from the Tory rags, and to suggest otherwise is either naive or dishonest.

You could also argue that Cameron’s popularity is fading and Corbyns is rising – fine. But Corbyn is still 8% points below Cameron. Also if you look at the long term trend, Cameron is below his average at the moment so is likely to bounce back – Corbyn has literally just begun, so it’s hard to say anything about longer term momentum, as you do in the article. Satisfaction with leadership and ratings on how “prime ministerial” someone is are the most consistently accurate indicators of who wins an election.

You make a point about young voters being with Corbyn, and that the future belongs to the young. Well that may be true, but the young are more likely to change their voting habits as they age than the old are, and in any case are far less likely to vote in the first place. Saying “the young are with Corbyn so we’ll win in the future” is wishful thinking, and ignores clear evidence on voting behaviour. See for example this: http://ukgeneralelection.com/2015/05/22/the-election-result-one-last-look/#more-3175

Finally, a point on the voting intention stuff. More people say they are going to vote Labour than actually do, and less people say they will vote Tory than actually do. This is true of almost every post-war election ever. Search for the “shy Tory” effect – literally millions of pounds is spent researching this to make polling more accurate, so to say that Ipsos is just biased is wrong – their modelling is based on what actually happened in 2015 and other elections, not on what people SAID was going to happen. Remember, if what people SAID was going to happen actually did, Ed Milliband would be in number 10, but he isnt.

So, to paraphrase the ending to your article, yes, some parts looks like Corbyn and Labour are doing better than the Tories – but only if you squint really hard with one eye and close the other, whilst misreporting the facts and having very poor knowledge of electoral UK politics.

Sorry, I voted for Corbyn and I’m a lefty, but articles like this undermine our credibility, and our ability to organise effectively, win elections, and help the majority of peoples lives for the better.

I am not going to address every point you make because I actually address some of the points you have criticised within the article itself. Even acknowledging outright that some of the issues are subjective.

One thing to point out which I think is very important is that you miss the entire point of the article.

This article is not attempting to blatantly say that Corbyn is necessarily doing well or that Cameron is necessarily doing badly but is in fact highlighting that things could easily be argued from a different perspective than the newspaper articles have in which case showing that the articles are written in a biased manner.

You say that you can’t add figures together to make up your own figures, but again you’re missing the point. The newspapers are trying to show that a high percentage of people think he should go, and that maybe true but considering the press and every other aspect of the vitriol against Corbyn, the fact that a total of 50% think he should stay on is a good starting point if looked at in a positive light.

I make no apology for highlighting these facts and they should be highlighted.

Corbyn and other supporters have asked all Corbyn backers to remain polite and refrain from personnel attacks.. We were not aware that reporting facts or highlighting injustices in the press fell within that category. I believe no one should shy away from that fact. To suggest this article and ones like it will in any way harm the Labour Party is an obsolete joke and an insult and quite frankly your own personal opinion and nothing more. We do not share that opinion in the slightest. However, of course everyone has an opinion and we still appreciate the feedback.

I think, in summary, that the big criticism of the reporting that you make well, if roundaboutly, is that reporting of approval numbers without disapproval numbers gives a very incomplete (and in the cases described, biased pro-Tory) picture.

Yes and sometimes that is entirely missed. The kind of comment here was the kind of criticism we received the last time we exposed one of these polls and on that Occassion no mistakes were made, it’s regrettable that we made an error in this article.

And although it may not have come across as clear on this Occassion the entire point of these articles are to highlight bias reporting.

If, as some have, we get criticised for bias reporting ourselves.. Well, that’s the whole point. It shows stats can be argued either way. It just depends what side you’re on.